


It Gets Better

by HK44



Series: Brokes, Pennsylvania [12]
Category: Original Work
Genre: ASL, American Sign Language, Comfort, Deaf Character, Original Character(s), alex is lucky to have them, nick is a great friend, non-binary characters, reassurance, short fic, slight panic over shit happening that he's not ready for, they/them pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-07 01:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6778657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex has a slight panic over life and Nick brings him back down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Gets Better

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo! My sign language is mostly picked up from my mom so there may be a few signs that are wrong. Yes, she is deaf but when you're three and come up with a sign that means a certain word and she accepts it as meaning that word and then never tells you until fifteen or so years later when you can't stop using that damn sign, it's a bit hard to not write them in or be aware of what sign you got wrong.

“Do you ever get scared?” I asked. “That one day everything that’s been going so well is just gonna break?” My ankles pressed hard into the wooden dock and I could feel myself shrinking as I leaned over slightly, gripping my knees with tight hands. “That everything… everything you care about, everything you love is gonna be gone in just a matter of seconds?”

Nick was carefully silent. After a while they dropped their knees, letting their legs dip into the water.

“You’re getting your pants wet,” I said. “You hate wet pants.”

“I do,” Nick said slowly, reaching up to their ears. They tugged their hearing aids off, stared at them for a moment before chucking them into the water.

I paused, not quite sure what was happening. “Uh…”

They shook their head and held up a hand, interrupting me mid-sign. They snapped their index and middle finger to their thumb. Their other hand rose to their ear, pinkie and ring finger folding over the palm as the other three digits stuck out, thumb touching just below their ear. They bent their middle and index finger a few times. _No. Listen_.

My hands dropped and I nodded.

 _My life good, yes? Now my pants wet and hearing gone. That is bad._ They shrugged easily. _Do not mean cannot get better. Do not mean cannot have dry pants and hearing. Just mean now is bad._ They reached over and squeezed my thigh, the other hand fisted with their index finger flicking upwards beside their head. _Understand?_

“But.” I cleared my throat before slashing each index finger against each other in a downwards motion. They both circled into the universal okay sign, or ASL’s “F”, and shook both up and down, facing and beside each other. The pinkie finger of my right hand slid from my throat outwards my chin and my left hand swung under my right hand, both fingers grasping into a fist. Lifting my right hand to my face, I swatted down. _What if it get bad?_ I repeated the first four words, pausing. _What if it get_ … Swallowing hard enough that I could feel into my chest, I repeated them again, this time both hands sliding their thumbs down their middle fingers, pinkies and ring fingers bending into the palm. I slung the hands against each other, right hand over top left hand. _What if it get worse?_

Keeping them in the same positions, I hit both hands against each other. With both hands remaining on top of one another, I repeated my little grasping motion and slid them back to the previous position, sliding them against each, right over left. _Keep get worse?_

I may have started to cry, anxiety filling inside my chest like my lungs were goddamn water balloon. Just expanding and expanding and expanding until someone was bound to poke me, something sharp was bound to stab me and make everything explode inside my head.

Nick gripped my wrist, tugging on it. I faced them, breathing back sobs.

“Hey,” they whispered. Well, it was supposed to be a whisper, if anything else. I winced and they shook their head, pressing their free hand to their throat. “Hey. It gets better.”

My pinkie slid against my chin, index and middle finger curling around each other and brushing off my lips downward. I clawed both hands, pointing them palm down, and shook them side to side before brushing my thumb hard outwards from my chin. _It really do not._

“It does, Alex. It really does. Because things can’t keep going bad for good people and believe me,” they whispered, hands pulling my head to theirs, knocking our foreheads together, “you are a good person.”

I breathed hard and they pressed a kiss to each eyelid before bumping their lips against my ear.

“It gets better. It always gets better.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaaand that's that.
> 
> Also I'm on [tumblr.](happykid44.tumblr.com) Feel free to ask me questions about my panicking child and my deaf child. ;)


End file.
